Game Report

After a commanding 5-1 on the road in Charlotte Tuesday night, the Lehigh Valley Phantoms looked to repeat their efforts on Wednesday to extend their lead in the series.

For roughly the first half of the opening period, both teams seemed to be a bit hesitant as they skated up and down the length of the ice and getting shots off, but not many quality chances.

Some bad news for the Phantoms as Samuel Morin, who had just returned on Saturday from months off recovering from injury, took a hit in the corner and went down clutching his right knee/leg. He had to be helped off the ice and immediately went down the tunnel, not putting much weight on his leg in the process.

But then things turned around when T.J. Brennan blasted the puck from the blue line and it took a perfect deflection off the end boards to pop out in front of the net where Danick Martel was waiting to put it past Alex Nedeljkovic.

The second period was all Charlotte, which meant that Alex Lyon had to be sharp. He came up with quite a few timely saves that kept the Phantoms in the lead. But eventually the Checkers found a way to get the puck in the back of Lyon’s net, in a similar fashion to Martel’s goal in the first period.

With the game tied at 1-1 to begin the third period, and being outshot 24-14 overall, the Phantoms needed a strong 20 minutes to finish on top and take command of the series. But the Checkers dominated the third period in the same fashion, continuing to pin Lehigh Valley in the defensive zone and putting Lyon’s skills to the test.

60 minutes would not be enough to decide this one, and in overtime the Phantoms allowed the Checkers to continue their onslaught of shots on Lyon. As fatigue started to set in at both ends of the ice, the goaltenders managed to keep their respective teams alive with 21 total shots on goal in the frame.

The second, third, and fourth overtime periods also didn’t result in any scoring, and so the teams took the ice for quintuple overtime around 1:00 am. Officially becoming the longest AHL game in league history, Alex Krushelnyski finally put this game to bed (literally) with a wrister just under seven minutes into the frame.

Lehigh Valley now leads the series 3-1 and after such a long and historic night, the teams will be glad to know that the next games isn’t until Saturday night.

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